James Breen (Clare, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 713: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of special needs assistants who will lose their positions in County Clare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22360/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

It is not possible to inform the Deputy as to how many special needs assistants in County Clare will have their contracts renewed for the new school year. The retention of special needs assistants by schools can vary from school to school depending on the needs of the individual children and whether or not the children are due to leave school at the end of this school year. Responsibility for the recruitment and employment of special needs assistants rests with the relevant school authorities and it is a matter for the school authorities to inform special needs assistants employed by them of the situation for the 2005-06 school year.

In order to assist schools in this regard, my Department has recently issued a letter to schools who have surplus special needs assistants staff which contained guidelines for schools in selecting staff that should be let go. The letter confirmed that the selection criteria for determining whose contract should be terminated will be on a last in, first out basis, subject to the contractual position pertaining in schools. This means that, unless the most junior special needs assistant in the school has a written child specific contract that entitles her/him to remain in the school, her/his contract should be terminated on the basis that she/he is the most junior special needs assistant in the school in terms of length of service.

If however the school has operated on the basis of employing all special needs assistants on child specific contracts, and offered such contracts to the special needs assistants, it is the special needs assistant who is attached to the child who has been identified as no longer needing the services of an special needs assistant that should be released.

Applications for special needs assistant support are now dealt with by the National Council for Special Education who process all applications for support from schools and communicate the decisions directly to the schools. At this stage, the council has dealt with all new applications from schools for special needs assistants that will be required from the beginning of September 2005.

The Government has put in place an unprecedented level of support for children with special needs. Indeed, since 1998, the number of special needs assistants has increased from under 300 to over 6,000 nationally. In addition to this, more effective systems, such as the establishment of the National Council for Special Education, have been put in place to ensure that children get support as early as possible.